Mobile voice communication devices, such as cellular telephones, have primarily functioned to transmit and receive voice communication signals. But as the technology has advanced in recent years, additional functions have also become available on cellular phones. Examples of this added functionality include an onboard telephone directory, voice recognition capabilities, voice-activation features, games, and notebook functions, just to name a few. Indeed, not only are these capabilities being added to cellular phones but voice communication capabilities are being added to computing platforms such as the PDA (personal digital assistant); thus blurring the distinction between cellular phones and other handheld computing devices.
One example of a more modern mobile communication and computing device is the T-Mobile pocket PC Phone Edition, which includes a cellular telephone integrated with a hand-held computing device running the Microsoft Windows CE operating system. The pocket PC includes an Intel Corp. StrongARM processor running at 206 MHz, has 32 MB of RAM (memory), a desktop computer interface and a color display. The pocket PC is a mobile platform meant to provide the functions of a cellular telephone and a personal digital assistant (PDA) in a single unit.
Some of the current wireless voice communication devices provide a text messaging function, known as SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging. This text messaging function enables users to use the alphanumeric keypad on the device to compose short text messages (i.e., up to 160 characters) that are then sent over a low bandwidth channel that is available in cellular communication technology. Text messaging can be a very convenient way to communicate and probably because of that, it has become quite popular, especially in Europe.